When to Double (Read 2170 times)

On race day. This is more of a tactical consideration and recommended only if you're putting in decent miles already. In my experience, a slow 1-2 miles on the morning of a race does a good job of waking the body up, shaking out the kinks, and getting you mentally ready to race in the next 3 hours or so. Granted, you'll still want to do a true warm up closer to the actual race so you're not running on cold muscles. I've had decent success with it from 5K through 1/2 marathon, so maybe it'll work for you. I would suggest trying it with a low key race before attempting it before any ones where you're trying to set a PR - no sense wasting your training if your body responds poorly to it.
Aside from that special case, I agree with Jeff's statement earlier that it makes you reassess your running. If you want to derive the best results from it, you really need to listen to your body and consider the purpose of each run in your training week. Mileage simply for the sake of mileage is a sure path to overtraining and injury, especially if your main reason for pursuing this is because you can push the pace faster by splitting up the runs. Just my $0.02 on this oft debated topic.

+42
Doubles take WAY more time. The only solution is to not shower between them.

LOL! That is what I do, my poor co-workers.
I am currently backing off a bit on doubles, but I want to work them back in. Not being as fast as some of you guys I think I might be one that over 50 mpw should run doubles. Right now I was advised to not do doubles on the cut-back week. I'm not sure though, sometimes I feel like I recover quicker with the double easy runs, as long as I can hold-back. Any thoughts about doubles on cut-back weeks?

If that's the case, I don't think doubles are an issue so long as your runs aren't turning into a 2-2 split situation.

What's a 2-2 split situation? Evenly distanced doubles? Hym, Wed I did that. Last week was a progressive mid-week easy run, 9.5 miles. (really trying to keep it easy). This Wed my legs were tired, I ran 3.25 minutes in the morning. In the evening legs were itching to run, but I kind of knew I wasn't 100% yet, so I ran again just 30 or so minutes, slow hill repeats. I really wasn't sure I was suppose to run that double, but I felt the best after the double, and just fine on Thursday. Was that fine or dumb?

What's a 2-2 split situation? Evenly distanced doubles? Hym, Wed I did that. Last week was a progressive mid-week easy run, 9.5 miles. (really trying to keep it easy). This Wed my legs were tired, I ran 3.25 minutes in the morning. In the evening legs were itching to run, but I kind of knew I wasn't 100% yet, so I ran again just 30 or so minutes, slow hill repeats. I really wasn't sure I was suppose to run that double, but I felt the best after the double, and just fine on Thursday. Was that fine or dumb?

Bugs, it's all fine. Nice work on increasing the miles. You're establishing a new rhythm of training. Just let it settle in and keep listening to your body. If you feel like running, by all means--run!

I meant 2 miles in the morning, 2 in the afternoon as an example of a run that is a double simply for the sake of doubling. Kind of an extreme, but you never know. What you're doing sounds fine, keep it up!

I am now incorporating doubles into my weekly routine, as I am currently at 60mpw and going up. I simply need to throw in a double or two to fit it in with family commitments.

"I've been following Eddy's improvement over the last two years on this site, and it's been pretty dang solid. Sure the weekly mileage has been up and down, but over the long haul he's getting out the door and has turned himself into quite a runner. He's only now just figuring out his potential. Consistency in running is measured in years, not weeks. And over the last couple of years, Eddy's made great strides" Jeff 14 Jan 2009

The key is, I think, you need to be used to doubles first. Forget tempo runs for now. Just go out and run. Run doubles as much as you can. When you first start running doubles, you just feel weird. In about a month or two, the weariness will be gone, running will be like breathing to you, and you'll be able to run three or so tempo runs a week if you want to.

A question for those that double... do you also run every day? If not, why would you run twice one day and not run another day.

In the past, yes I have run every day, and doubled 5 of those days. I did it to fit in the mileage and workouts that I wanted. Generally, I would run a shorter, easier run at lunch, with the main workout being in the morning. I found that my recovery was better when I incorporated those lunch runs in. In other words, most of the time the second run was for recovery purposes.